Morning Wake-Up Call

After a week, Scott still reaches over when he's just waking up to rub my belly. You can tell he's still surprised when he realizes there's nothing there, and he moves his hand to my breast or arm, trying to pretend he wasn't saying good morning to our dead baby. I can't bring myself to tell him to stop, it's also my own little morning reminder - you're no longer pregnant, now put on a brave face, get up and face the day.

I can't watch TV anymore. I never realized how often babies and pregnant women are featured in commercials. If I try to watch TV to zone out for a while, an image of a preggo or a baby snaps me right back into myself, where I actually have to think about what happened and try not to cry about it. Reading's marginally better, but I can't read any new books - what if there's a baby in the book? I've been re-reading all the books I know for sure don't have any mention of the things I'm cowardly avoiding. I get bored with re-reading, so I try to work more on painting the house (we're on second coat of primer), but my leg still hurts from surgery, and every time I have to step up onto a chair to paint near the ceiling it twinges, and my mind goes right to the reason.

This is impossible to avoid, when all I want to do is get on with my life, stop being such a wreck. I wish I could force myself not to think about it most of the time, and allow myself grieving time in the shower, where no one can hear me cry.

Two Strikes, I'm Out

This seemed to help the last time, so I guess it's time to start writing again. Six months and 3 days after I delivered my stillborn baby girl, a baby boy followed. He only made it to 19 weeks, but his growth was at 17 weeks, so it seems to be a recurring problem. Scott and I decided a while ago that this would be our last try - I'm not strong enough to do this again. So now in addition to grieving for my baby, I'm grieving because I know I will never have a biological child. I think the pain is worse this time. Which is weird - I didn't think it was possible to be more sad than I was last June. I wish someone had told me it was - I wouldn't have tried to get pregnant again. At least if I had never gotten pregnant again, I could have deluded myself into thinking I could potentially bring a baby to term. Now I have to realize - my body is broken, defective, rotten.

I don't understand why this happened - no one in Scott's or my family seems to have trouble having children. Why do my babies die? Why is my body not good enough, not nurturing enough? I feel guilty I ever tried to get pregnant in the first place - I think all the time about whether or not my babies were in pain when they were dying, and I can't bear the thought that they were.

I keep thinking of the things I was looking forward to - Scott painting my pregnancy silhouette portrait, breastfeeding, even labor and giving birth - I'll never have these things. Adoption can give me a baby, but it can't give me back what I've lost, and it can't make me feel like a real woman, a woman capable of bringing life into the world.